Location

Charleston, SC

Sector

Buildings

Value

$10M - $50M

Market Type

Corporate Office, Green Building

Services

CM-at-Risk

Construction Collaboration Achieves Progressive Environmental Design

Blackbaud’s Campus Provides Modern Workplace for Employees

Balfour Beatty was selected by Holder Properties to build a new corporate campus for Blackbaud, a high-growth provider of software and services for the global philanthropic community in Charleston, South Carolina. Having recently built Garco Park and Hotel Bennett, along with several other projects in the surrounding area, the Balfour Beatty team was familiar with the local ordinances and code requirements. More importantly, they were able to leverage their deep relationships with key local subcontractor partners to ensure the strongest team was offered to the client.

Balfour Beatty hosted a SmartStart™ session with the owner, architects and partners to enhance coordination amongst the entire team and establish clear goals and expectations ahead of putting work in place. During this session, the team rallied around specific schedule milestones critical to the tenant such as building dry-in as well as operational conditioned air and kitchen equipment. The team also talked about how to utilize pull planning to ensure the path to these milestones was clear and achievable. With these overall goals in mind, the team laid out a solid plan to create a modern and inspiring workplace for Blackbaud employees. And by employing our established local market and national subcontractor relationships, they were able to achieve maximum value.

Enhancing Speed, Preserving Quality and Safety

One of those long-standing relationships, Citadel Contractors, provided an option to erect the building’s exterior walls through tilt wall panels. This method, which required the delicate placement of concrete panels weighing as much as 180,000 pounds, afforded several advantages to the project. Employing tilt-up construction methods enhanced the speed of construction and preserved the quality of construction along the way. After careful coordination and with a keen eye on safety, the majority of the building’s exterior structure was in place within 90 days.

With so many unique skin applications on the exterior including curtainwall, storefront systems, coquina stone, Ultracrete, metal paneling and Geolam, it was imperative from the start that the team look for ways to simplify the process, save time and keep an eye on quality. Working together with project partners, the Balfour Beatty team was able to shave approximately one month off of a traditional steel and precast building structure.

Working Smart

Working in a high traffic area, due to a separate construction project taking place to the East and limited road access, Balfour Beatty remained mindful of deliveries.

Balfour Beatty leveraged the latest technologies and lean construction methods to achieve the project’s progressive environmental design. BIM was one such integral tool. Months were spent planning with the MEPF subs in attempts to eliminate as many clashes as possible.

A Reflection of Blackbaud’s Brand

Blackbaud valued sustainability and worked with the team members to identify ways to be good stewards of the environment. Designed by ASD | SKY to achieve LEED® Certified criteria, the eco-friendly campus included many sustainable, green building features such as car-charging stations, low energy LED lighting and building materials using low-volatile organic chemicals. Native landscaping and an outdoor garden including fruit trees are planned for the exterior grounds.

As a leading global cloud software company, Blackbaud’s new campus will naturally be high tech with features such as ideation and collaboration spaces outfitted with SMART boards, video conferencing and digital signage to foster employee creativity in support of the company’s innovative culture. The campus will also include a customer technology center designed to help incubate non-profit organizations. The company plans to host local students on campus for Camp Blackbaud, its employee-led STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) program.

This corporate campus will consolidate Blackbaud’s Charleston operations into one location situated on 13 acres in the Daniel Island community. A four-story, 172,000-square-foot office building, Blackbaud’s campus will provide a modern workplace for its employees for many years to come.